Blockchain Size: Everything You Need To Know

Blockchain Size: Everything You Need To Know

Curious about blockchain size? We will cover everything related to blockchain size, the limits, and whether it can create issues in the future.

Blockchain is known to revolutionize the world around us. After all, it changes how we define the process, store data, and explore the security of a network that the application runs on. It brings immutability, transparency, and unparalleled security that no other technology has been able to do so until now.

But there is one big problem — blockchain block size. To understanding the problem, let’s first learn how the blockchain works.

In any blockchain network, there is no centralized authority. Peers participate in bringing decentralization to the network. Each peer has a copy of the ledger (where all transactions are stored). This means that if any new transaction takes place, the ledger on each node will be updated accordingly. The unique solution lets businesses to create decentralized networks capable of solving problems not possible before.

Bitcoin is the biggest name in cryptocurrency in terms of both price index and market capitalization. Given the growing public investment into crypto, Bitcoin and other established currencies, such as Ethereum and Ripple, are facing increased competition from new, well-funded cryptocurrencies, which raised 52 million U.S. dollars in total in initial coin offering (ICO) in November 2019.

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January 2009 to October 11, 2021

The numbers provided were originally reported in megabytes and have been converted to gigabytes. 1GB equals 1,024MB. Numbers were then rounded.

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Bitcoin (BTC) price history up until October 26, 2021

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Daily Bitcoin (BTC) market cap history up until October 24, 2021

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Unique cryptocurrency wallets created on Blockchain.com as of October 10, 2021

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Price comparison of 100 cryptocurrencies as of October 26, 2021

3. Economics and supply distribution

Litecoin utilizes the Nakamoto consensus, and nodes validate blocks via Proof-of-Work mining.

Litecoin was not pre-mined, and has a maximum supply of 84 million, exactly 4 times that of Bitcoin. The initial reward for a block is 50 litecoins, and halves every 840,000 blocks. Since the target time for block production on the Litecoin blockchain is 2.5 minutes, it implies that Litecoin block reward halving will take place every 4 years.

How The Bitcoin Blockchain Stacks Up Against Other Types Of Tech

At only 350GB of data, the blockchain’s size is highly efficient for the amount of value transacted across it. Let’s be real – even an Apple iPhone that fits in your pocket packs around 256GB worth of data into the device. And unless you are quite the baller, you aren’t moving as much value through it as Bitcoin does through its network on the regular.

Even you’re most basic PC should come equipped with 512 gigs at minimum, but more advanced computers and laptops moving into the the terabyte territory.

A Sony PlayStation 5, offers 825GB, with up to 667.2GB of it available to users of the hottest console on the market today. At that size, almost two full Bitcoin blockchains could fit.

Your standard MicroSD flash memory card can reach up to 1TB worth of storage, and measures only 11mm by 15mm. Yet it could pack at least three full blockchain networks with a trillion dollar market cap.

With such a tiny footprint, running Bitcoin doesn’t take up much data and helps to ensure the longevity of the network.

Follow @TonySpilotroBTC on Twitter or via the TonyTradesBTC Telegram. Content is educational and should not be considered investment advice.

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Tony Spilotro

I’m Tony Spilotro. Behind the pseudonym, I’m a digital media executive and global remote work leader with a decade of content experience and excellence. Here, I explore my newfound passions pertaining to privacy, finance, economics, politics, cryptography, property rights, and other libertarian-esque views. I am a Bitcoin evangelist, maximalist, and educator whenever I can be, helping to spread its message of freedom from government control, monetary policy mismanagement, and passing the buck — literally – to future generations. My journey from a curious retail crypto investor to a serious Bitcoin advocate, trader, and technical analyst is an unusual one, but life-changing nonetheless and has become less about money and more about a long-overdue revolution. While a firm believer in the laws governing math and science, I am profoundly fascinated by the impact of astrology and astronomy including moon and solar cycles and planetary alignment and their ability to influence and potentially predict markets. It hasn’t yet clicked for me as to how to put anything to use, but I consider it my current rabbit hole I can’t yet dig out of. My perspective of growing up alongside the internet, the dot com era, the Great Recession, and roots in video games collecting coins and rare items caused Bitcoin to immediately make sense to me. Through all of these lenses, I seek to produce content that is educational and entertaining, and I thank you sincerely for taking the time to read what I have to say. Please follow me on Twitter and feel free to drop me a line if you would like to work together.